Blasphemous 2 Reviews

absolutely amazing souls like platformer that made me lose my mind before finally defeating specific bosses.

Good but flawed! It's still as clunky as the first game if not even more and there are issues with balancing on both items and bosses along with a world that does not feel truly connected. Despite this it shines with its vision of a catholic horror.

I enjoyed this more than the first Blasphemous. The combat really opens up when having multiple weapons all with their own skills to unlock. The map exploration is a big focus this time around. The game starts off with many dead ends but once you unlock most of the traversal abilities, backtracking becomes a treat and pretty satisfying. Make sure you mark everything on your map with a separate icon to differentiate. There's weapon skills, prayers/spells, perks/rosaries, AND builds with the new figure system. There's a lot of game here with plenty carrot-on-a-stick things to chase and I appreciated that. Blasphemous 1 has the better art style/atmosphere/vibes, but the sequel is better in every other way. A definite recommend.

Deserves the money, the music itself is enough to make the atmosphere. If you play, definitely go for 100 percent and unlock everything including the endings. DLC is a bit expensives but I'm always down for additional 10 hours of content. 9.5/10, because I liked the first game much more because of its unique darker atmosphere and pixel animations. Animations could be better in this game imo. Note: You can buy and play DLC anytime, it feels like it was always there (actually it is). It was a worry of mine, so I wanted to share.

FIX THE DOUBLE KO BOSS BUG If you happen to die at the same time as a boss, GG your game is blocked because you won't receive the loot and the boss is not there anymore, all you can do is restart, I just lost 14h of gameplay. Bug is out there for more than 2 years.

Game was alright but qol is atrocious. Ferver loss was way better in the first game

Amazing music, great artstyle, very based setting. English dub is good, but would never switch off Spanish dub, voice acting is too good.

I really enjoyed the original game for its dynamic gameplay and progressive leveling. The second game has raised the ceiling on skill combinations, platforming, exploration, and combat. This is an incredible game.

It's better than the first game in almost every aspect (the DLCs in the previous game were free lol), but at the same time it mantains its essence at its finest. Excelent new mechanics, fantastic atmosphere and amazing souls-like boss fights. 8.5/10

In Metroidvanias, there is Exploration, and there is exploration. The prior is the one I think many games strive to achieve, while the latter is where they actually end up. To clarify, Exploration is the act of delving into a strange world, getting lost, finding your way out, then getting lost again. On the other hand, exploration with a lower-case 'e' (it might even deserve apostrophes), is the part of a Metroidvania game usually near the end when, having collected all the abilities, you are able to fast travel across the map, snagging collectible after collectible and completing quest after quest. This dopamine-fueled, checklist-checking exploration might be lesser compared to the ideal of "Venturing Forth into the Unknown!" but it is equally responsible for the success of the genre. Typically, my favorite parts of these games are the bosses, and the feeling of progression. Throughout them you collect new movement upgrades, getting a slow drip of power, but it's not until the end game when you are combing the map for all the items you have missed that you truly feel that new sense of power. When you collect a double jump, for example, now all the new levels are designed around the double jump, so while things have technically changed, usually it just boils down ledges being a bit higher up and gaps a bit farther across. In other words, you just have to press the jump button a second time. However, once you go back to the earlier areas, you realize that you can now double jump and dash across pits where once you had to wait for a moving platform. You actually start to feel the impact of the power you have been accumulating the entire game. All of this is to say that Blasphemous 2 might be one of the most fulfilling experiences in this regard. There are a lot of items hidden across the map, which ends up being a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that you will get to revisit every area (except for the last ones, which you already had every ability upon entering), and during these romps you will be able to tear through and grab item after item. For someone who loves teleporting from here to there, checking the map to see what spaces you might have missed, and snagging a whole lot of crap, then this section of the game will be immensely satisfying. For those who are less enamored by wandering around or watching guides, well, you'll have to accept that you won't be getting all the achievements, or that by the time you do, you will be very tired and annoyed. For a game with so many collectibles, Blasphemous 2 doesn't seem to want you to succeed in collecting them. Ender Lillies' map, which lights up when a room is completed, is a great example of how to help players keep track of where they have gone. If you don't want to go that far, at least give a percentage for individual areas of the map. I have decided to call my file done even though it sits at 99%. I have collected every item, beaten every boss, explored the entire map, etc. yet the game refuses to give me the achievement for 100%. If there was some way to tell what in the heck I was missing, it would make me quite happy. It would also have made the journey getting to 99% less of a chore. Back to this idea of Exploration vs exploration: While Blasphemous 2 is flooded with the latter, it definitely lacks in the prior. This is not a problem by itself, but as I said earlier, many Metroidvanias seem to strive for freedom of choice in tackling their objectives. There is frequently a section, either early on or later in the game, when a few points light up on the map, and it's up to you which one to go after first. I think this type of design is fine. In some cases, I even prefer the simplicity of being guided to the next objectives, and it can feel neat if you're playing the game alongside someone and you are able to compare the routes you each took, sharing information about what items to look out for and what strategies to use against the bosses you encountered. Still, these choices are a nonlinear gauze covering a linear experience. I will restate: I appreciate linearity. I emphatically do not find wandering around with no purpose enjoyable. I have a lot of games to play, so I appreciate when games simply let me play them. Keep moving me on to the next thing. With this being said, there is a reason that "Exploration" is capitalized and "exploration" isn't. For those who have played Hollow Knight and wandered into Deepnest then gotten trapped there and had to crawl your way out, you know just how much power Exploration has when it hits. That sequence of wandering into and getting stuck in a dark area I was completely unprepared for is one that will stick with me forever. I truly felt like I was somewhere else, not like I was just playing my way through a video game. The key to experiences like this is to give players the ability to stumble into places that they feel they should not be. That feeling of "Where the heck have I ended up?" is what Exploration is all about. Think about Breath of the Wild. You can go straight to the castle if you want to. Not pushing quite so far, you can choose to fight a Lynel at the beginning of the game. These opportunities for players to create interesting challenges for themselves (really it's the clever game designers who have allowed for these opportunities) is what can make open-ended games so exciting. Now it's time to double-back to Blasphemous 2 and Metroidvanias as a whole. At the beginning, I said that many games in the genre strive for this nonlinear Exploration but end up falling short. I do think this is the case, with interconnected maps and areas that can be tackled in various orders. The problem is that players will always reach a point in these games where they are told "No." Maybe it's a ledge that's just a little too high up, or a barrier you can't dash through. This aspect of the genre is something that future Metroidvanias will have to contend with. How can developers create truly nonlinear experiences while still having a progression of abilities? There are already some great shots at answering that question out there. Pseudoregalia has a number of movement upgrades, and you are able to traverse obstacles differently depending on which of these abilities you have obtained. On the other hand, Tres-Bashers features a supremely designed, compact world, where every area actually is connected to those around it. You are constantly wandering into new places, many of which are places you will feel unprepared for. These are just two examples, and I'm sure there are many more. I'm also sure that some of these notes of mine are trite. Not all Metroidvanias have to strive for the ideal of Exploration. I'm fine with guidance and completion percentages and linear levels. Still, I know that the experiences I will never forget are those that tested the boundaries of linearity and tested me at the same time. Games in this genre are supposed to be open-ended, and choosing from a list of three options is not true freedom. Here's to hoping for more games that let me create choices of my own.